5 Ways to Start a Clean Eating Lifestyle (For Women)

I understand that change, especially when it comes to your eating habits and lifestyle, is difficult.

Despite your good intentions, committing to a clean eating lifestyle can be very frustrating.

Especially when you have to balance work, kids, husband/partner, house stuff and then finally yourself (notice how you’re placed last on the list).

You may want make the commitment to solely eating lean protein, nutrient-dense food, and healthy fat sources…

… but later find yourself standing in the kitchen consuming ice cream and cookies.

This kind of behavior can be better understood and avoided with these 5 tips…

1. Craft Specific and Reachable Goals for Yourself

Eating healthy is relatively easy, but I’ve found my female clients have a tendency to over-complicate things (for some reason guys think differently when it comes to food).

Most ladies will endlessly read and research different nutritional strategies, often becoming frustrated with the large number of possible clean eating diets.

In reality, you need to start small and keep things simple…

Stay away from processed foods and only eat things that walk/grow on the earth or swim in the sea – this is where you should start.

Craft a specific, feasible goal based on these guidelines.

For example, try committing to reaching a clean eating schedule in which your breakfast, lunch, and dinner only consist of such healthy food choices.

Small, specific goals are the way to go.

2. Don’t Try to Change Everything at Once

It takes practice to change bad habits.

Unhealthy choices, such as sugar-laden snacks, are addictive in nature and trigger various pleasure sensors in our brains.

Trying to immediately change 100% of your food intake to healthy choices can be very difficult.

As with quitting cigarettes, you will have more success weaning yourself off unhealthy foods in a progressive fashion.

If you currently eat unhealthy foods at all of your meals, commit to eating a healthy breakfast for the first week.

The following week, start focusing on eating a healthy breakfast and lunch every day.

Continue in such a fashion until all your meals are healthy.

Breaking down change into small pieces definitely makes things more manageable…

How to Break Bad Habits

Week 1: Just focus on breakfast.

Week 2: Just focus on lunch.

Week 3: Just focus on dinner.

Week 4: Just focus on snacks.

Notice how it's so much easier trying to 'fix' one meal per week as apposed to all 3.

3. Change Your Environment to Make Healthy Choices Easier

Despite wanting to adopt a clean eating lifestyle, you may still be tempted to make unhealthy eating choices in certain environments and situations.

For example watching late night tv triggers a response in your brain to eat chocolate (this is obviously known as a habit).

Here’s what your habit may look like in real life…

Self-control is a limited resource – just like a muscle, eventually it will burn out and get tired.

So the smarter option would be to change the cue (tv) to maybe reading a book, going for a walk or calling a friend. Staying away from the cue can help you stay away from the bad habit (chocolate).

4. Build Your Fitness Squad

A common saying is that you’re the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.

I think the old saying goes something like… hang around bank robbers, become a bank robber.

The eating habits of your closest family members and friends will influence your own dietary behaviors.

Eating clean will be more difficult if your closest friends have the opposite goals to you.

While respecting the behaviors of your friends and family, try to find people who share the same clean eating values as yourself. This is obviously easier said than done. So maybe instead of eating out with them 3 times per week maybe you only do it once.

There is no doubt that behavior is contagious. Seek positive peer pressure to build good habits.

5. Celebrate The Small Victories to Build Positive Momentum

As you make slow and steady changes in your diet to reach your goals, don’t forget to congratulate yourself along the way.

Nothing crazy, and I’m not talking about going out for a massive binge – eating all the carbs, sugar and fat in sight.

But after a sustained period of healthy eating, perhaps consider spending some additional money on sampling a new healthy item from the grocery store, purchasing a new recipe book, or investing a new kitchen appliance to enhance your dietary options.

Reward yourself.

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed this blog post as much as I enjoyed making it for you.

I believe you’d agree with me that there’s no quick fix for adopting a clean eating lifestyle.

But by creating small reachable goals, changing one thing one week at a time, adjusting your eating environment, celebrating small victories and building a support network is a great place to start.

At the end of the day all these things will lead to one thing…

Results!

Speaking of results, would you like me to help you achieve them?

We are looking for 10 people to take part in our next 6 Week Challenge to feel FABULOUS and look AMAZING.

If you live near Ferntree Gully and you want to make a change, click the link below and get started today!

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About The Author

CHT is a personal training facility in Ferntree Gully that can help you kick-start your transformation and lose the first 5 kilos so you can get back the body you love. CLICK HERE to learn how we do it.